


and we were all forgiven (even though we didn't deserve it)

by ephemeralstar



Series: horses running until they forget that they are horses [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Sex, Pregnancy, and a 'all OCs welcome' sticker on the bottom, this fic is a blanket fort with a 'no canon deaths allowed' sign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-22 22:29:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21309655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralstar/pseuds/ephemeralstar
Summary: Instead of joining the Van Der Linde gang in the mountains after being injured in the Backwater Massacre, Adelaide 'Mad Dog' McCullough lies low at her family ranch just outside of Strawberry. All she knows is that she'd be dead weight if she stayed with them, though she knows she can take care of herself, and her standings in Strawberry were still pretty good, despite everything that she'd been party to. Despite this, months later when the gang settles down, she learns too late that her partner in crime managed to get himself caught.And that's when everyone learns that she'd do anything to get him back.--"He is drunk as a skunk, Miss McCullough, he can't remember his own name. He's an idiot. Go be with him." Arthur sighs, and McCullough rocks back on her heels for a moment, before her gaze finally drifts to where Sean is singing along to whatever they're singing around the campfire. Arthur gives her a gentle nudge in his direction, and she stumbles a few steps forwards, before turning back, something soft and vulnerable in her expression. It's not something Arthur's used to seeing on her."I'd marry that idiot if given half a chance."
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & Original Female Character(s), Sean MacGuire/Original Female Character(s)
Series: horses running until they forget that they are horses [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543420
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	and we were all forgiven (even though we didn't deserve it)

**Author's Note:**

> title from one of my favourite quotes from my favourite poems of all time; Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out  
the full quote is: 
> 
> _Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all forgiven,_  
_even though we didn’t deserve it._
> 
> listen, it's unedited, and i literally haven't even finished the game, i just know certain spoilers, and i'm ignoring them.

There's a gunshot wound in her left shoulder, and she can feel the bullet nestled firmly and painfully against the bone. There's several knicks along her legs and torso, and a fairly deep gash along one of her calves where the bullet went straight through, but the one in her shoulder caught bone. She's been riding for almost a day, not because Nursey, her horse, isn't fast, but because the skittish brute slows every time McCullough makes a pained noise.

As they get nearer to their destination, Nursey's ears prick up, and her strides pick up. 

The McCullough Ranch stand dark and haunted, haloed by the setting sun, empty for almost five years. With Nursey hitched by the porch, McCullough clears the house of the remnants of long gone squatters. 

The house, the cold empty homestead that she'd once called home, serves as refuge. Tomorrow she'll go into Strawberry and find a doctor, but tonight, it's all she can do just to sleep.

The months that follow are some of the hardest she's ever experienced, but she manages to plow through life. She steals a heard of sheep and sets them loose on the overgrown grounds, clears the cobwebs from the corners of the house, and sets about putting the house back in order from where it's been ransacked several times over. She gets her workbench back to functional, and starts learning the routes and schedules of supply vans, barely stepping foot in town. She's grown and changed since first leaving the ranch, and the townsfolk don't recognize her. They whisper about activity up by the Old McCullough Place, about how squatters should know better than to hang around that haunted house, that if 'that McCullough girl' comes back, she'll kil them where they stand, just like she did the rest of her family. McCullough stops listening after that.

The house is so quiet, she finds she misses the gang more than she thought she would, Sean especially. It had been so easy to get used to his laughter that she hadn't even realised it was a part of her background noise before it was gone. She grows used to not speaking over the months, and Nursey learns to read her nonverbal cues along the way.

Robbing wagons and stockpiling explosives, she gets by. Is easy to fend off bandits, though some take a little more persuading than others; she ends up with corpses strung up like scarecrows near the house, invisible from the road, but unmissable for those who got too close. 

"Jesus Fucking Christ, Miss Mad Dog," she'd know that voice anywhere as it greets her out of the blue one fine afternoon; no-one but the strangely polite Arthur Morgan calls her _Miss_ Mad Dog. "You certainly work for your name, don't you?" As she makes her way to the porch where he's made himself at home, she can't help but smile.

"King Arthur," her voice comes out scratchy from lack of use, but her Irish accent is still just as thick as it ever was, "what brings you to my fine establishment?"

"_Fine establishment_," Arthur chuckles under his breath, clearly happy to be seeing her, "if I didn't know you better I'd think there's some strange, religious sect out this way, stringing up human sacrifices and the like." His smile turns to a grimace at the sight of the half rotten bandit sitting in the tree several yards away. McCullough chuckles, opening the door and stepping onto the porch. 

Arthur looks underfed, though still strong and agile, while she's lost any of the softness she may have once had, now wiry muscles and sharp cheekbones accompanying her dark, hooded eyes. 

She makes a sharp clicking with her mouth, and there's the heavy, familiar hoofbeats as Nursey joins them. The horse hesitates for just a moment before he says her name, offers an apple, and it's all she needs to remember him. With the apple eaten, she sniffs him diligently, licking at his hands and face, her nose nudging him gently as if checking for injury, ever her namesake. Arthur has always had a soft spot for Nursey and McCullough, for which they're both grateful for, and he assures the fretting horse that he's fine.

He tells McCullough they've set up camp near Valentine, most of a day's ride away, in a forest by the lake. There's a spot for her if she wants it. 

Nursey's eating grass while McCullough packs up all the equipment she's been hoarding over the past few months, and seems nonplussed by the frankly comical amount of explosives being added into her saddle bags. If this were any other horse, McCullough would need a wagon for her supplies, but Nursey was a workhorse built like a warhorse, and it doesn't even seem to phase her.

They leave within the hour, the house is too haunted to stay.

* * *

Mccullough talks. McCullough won't fucking shut up, and it takes everyone surprise.

She's always been unnervingly quiet, soaked through to the bone in blood that's not hers, large, strange, blue eyes shining out from her macabre warpaint. But when she returns with Arthur, the distinctively heavy footsteps of Nursey are accompanied by a triumphant hoot and holler.

"I knew you rats would make it out alive!" She's scrambling from the horse's back, and Nursey diligently stops once her own's slid from her back. Kieran Duffy, the newest member of the gang, gently approaches the horse, marvelling at her size, trying to get a hold of her reigns to hitch her to a post, but Nursey cranes her neck, high and regal, and somehow gives the former O'Driscoll the most contemptuous look he's even received from a horse.

Dutch wraps the ginger up in a hug, tells her it's good to see her, but even as she extracts herself, she's already looking around, _searching_. 

"Did..." she can't quite form the words for what she's asking, but Dutch can still tell.

They're not sure if Sean's alive, and if he is, he's not with them. He knows before he even says it that she'll be out on the trail, searching everywhere for the man, and so he asks her not to; they need her help at camp, and if she goes back to Blackwater with as restless a soul as hers, she'll end up dead. No-one wants to see another person dead over that botched Blackwater job. McCullough nods, but her smile doesn't reach her eyes. She goes around the camp, catching up with those she's known, greeting those she doesn't.

Nursey is still standing like a statue when McCullough gets back to her, though as soon as they're within ten feet of one another, Nursey's head bows, and she whickers. McCullough pets her nose gently, resting her forehead against the horse's, eyes falling closed as she feels her heart aching in her chest. She wants nothing more than to charge down to Blackwater and find evidence of Sean's survival, come hell or high water, but she knows that Dutch is right, and she's not sure she could handle finding out that he hadn't made it altogether.

"You- you're Miss Mad Dog?" Comes a timid voice, and McCullough plasters a cocky smile on her face as she takes a step back from her horse.

"O' course! Mad Dog McCullough, how'd'ya do?" She asks, puffing out her chest. The man before her has a patchy, dark beard, and dark eyes full of worry; she doesn't recognise him, and Nursey snorts.

"I- I'm Kieran, I'm- it's hard to describe- I-" He's stumbling over his words, and it seems even the unflinching juggernaut that is Nursey, takes pity on him. She's a surprisingly good judge of character.

"Well, welcome Kieran, what do you do around here?"

He's in charge of the horses, of taking care of them, making sure they're washed and brushed and fed when their riders are busy. Nursey, once she has sensed that he poses no threat to McCullough, bows her head to him, nudging his shoulder in greeting. Kieran's impressed by her size; Nursey's a born and bred warhorse, gunmetal grey, clean enough to enter a show. McCullough takes great pride in her horse, this much Kieran can tell. McCullough talks to him about Nursey, about all that the horse has been through.

"I did... when the ladies talked about you coming back, they said you'd be with-" he's frowning a little, and McCullough's expression visibly sours.

"Jug? Did they say I'd be with Jug?" She asks, tone both angry and a little defeated. Kieran nods, but can sense it's not something she's particularly happy about. "It's a nickname; some of the others, my -" she has to stop herself, swallowing hard before continuing, "_Sean _included, calls my horse; Jug, short for Juggernaut." Even Nursey whinnies dismissively at that, though she was probably just picking up on McCullough's tone. "I raised her from birth, but I was still young, you see, and my pa liked to joke she was like _my_ nursemaid."

McCullough and Kieran get one well though, despite how chatty she was, which confused the newcomer, as he'd been told she was quiet as a mouse and deadly as the devil. She sometimes disappears for days on end, and comes back with sacks full of explosives, and ingredients she'd need for her '_fiery experiments_' as Arthur would call them. Until she'd stolen herself a wagon, she would sleep by the fire. Slowly but surely she accumulates a life for herself, brings a table from a homestead she claimed was empty, though she comes back smelling like gunsmoke, and there's scratch marks that look like they were made by a human on her arms. It becomes her workbench, and she whistles and chatters to herself while she works. 

Dutch sends her on jobs when he thinks she might be going stir-crazy, so every week or so, and she happily obliges, though she leaves the camp often enough. She and Nursey often spend the day following the New Hanover coastline, sometimes she doesn't say where she's been. She always takes her mask and gun. 

Around the fire, she talk about jobs she'd been on in the past, talks about defending her family ranch from bandits, talks about her brother and her da -

"You know you sound just like Sean, right?" Karen laughs, and McCullough goes quiet, expression turning dark. Karen mutters out an apology, but McCullough takes a long drink of her whiskey and grins brightly.

"He's a loudmouth'ed one, ain't he? He an' my brother's would have got on _famously_," and she starts on a story about how her brothers had taken home some of whatever they had been mining at work, something valuable, and so McCullough and her brothers lead them on a chase through the mountains north of Strawberry, and how the legend of Mad Dog McCullough had started when she, on the back of a still quite young Nursey, lead her brothers and the lawmen by a den of wolves; she and her brothers had gotten away, while the lawmen had fled back to Strawberry, and had assumed the siblings were lost to the wolves, or they just couldn't be bothered to collect. The brothers still went back to work, and were met with resounding applause from the other miners.

McCullough leaves after she finishes the story, too quick for anyone to ask where her brothers are now.

* * *

When Javier tells her that Sean's alive, it's like she's touched a live wire. She turns feverish with her experimentation, with her explosive creation. She could furnish a whole army with what she's got stored in the crates around her wagon by the time they actually go fetch him.

Every day until then, however, she wakes and asks Dutch -

_"_Please_, he's alive, I need to-"_

And every day she gets -

_"We have to wait until the right time, Miss McCullough, please be patient."_

So the day that Javier and Charles come to get her, she's all but chomping at the bit. Nursey can sense the frenetic energy she's buzzing with, and rides harder and faster to the ridge where they're meeting Arthur, than she'd ridden for a long while. 

And McCullough is quiet. 

McCullough, quiet and focused, is an unnerving force to behold. Something about her isn't quite right, it sets everyone around her on edge; it's part of her charm, Dutch had always said, but it had been a long time since she'd been so focused. Being unnerved but her was something of a gift right now, Arthur considered. 

They watch through binoculars as Sean is moved by the bounty hunters, and head down the ridge to the valley where he was taken. Arthur and McCullough wade through the river as Trelawny distracts the two closest guards. She pulls her knife, a dark metal with a gold, skull engraving in the blade, and silent as night, she stabs one of the two bounty hunters in the back, between the ribs, right where his heart should be, and she pulls his chin up, slitting his throat for good measure. Already there's blood on her hands, on her shirt, on her pants, and none of it's hers.

She works silently, swifter than Arthur can keep up with, she's already past Trelawny and on to the next set of guards. The first makes a surprised, pained noise when she stabs him, and when the second turns, she pulls her blade from the back of the firsts, and cuts the throat and face of the second in quick succession.

She paints the stones of the valley with the blood of the bounty hunters, her knife getting sheathed quickly in favour of her sawed-off shotgun. She leaves men practically as corpses, gasping their last with the shrapnel in their chest, while the others pick off the bounty hunters around her. She's taking their fire hard, but she doesn't seem to feel it, her focus single minded.

Sean's strung up, upside down, from a tree, and the moment McCullough sees him, all her patience is gone. She pulls two sticks of dynamite from where they were strapped to her ammunition belt, and lights them up, tossing them into the oncoming bandits and bounty hunters alike, and it's met with screams.

And then he's all she can see, running to him while Arthur and Charles and Trelawny pick off the leftover bandits. She cuts Sean down, despite the cuts and scrapes she had accumulated over the intense fire fight of the past few minutes, and Sean's _laughing_.

"You look like you've been through Hell!" He crows, before spotting a grimacing Arthur, "yeah, I think you all look better from the other angle." And his laughter fills the air, and something eases in McCullough's chest. The gunfire has stopped, and Arthur's saying something, but she can't hear it. Sean cracks another joke, now on his feet, turning to McCullough to see her response, but she shoves him hard enough to have him stumbling back.

"You ever get kidnapped again, I'll kill you myself." She tells him, so overwhelmed to have him back alive that she doesn't quite know what to do with herself. Sean just grins.

"It sounds like you were _worried _about me," he teases, though McCullough just whistles loud enough that the whole valley would be able to hear her. 

"Me? Worry about you? That doesn't sound like me." She said, trying to hide where she was blushing, as the familiar sound of Nursey's hoof beats made their way closer. The others were trying to hide their own smiles. 

"Miss Mad Dog, I'll leave you and Nursey to take this goon back to camp," Arthur told her, and McCullough gave a small smile. "The lawmen should be on their way, so keep reunions short-"

"Get on the horse, MacGuire." McCullough didn't even wait for Arthur to finish before gesturing to Nursey. The horse seemed pleased to see Sean, nudging him with her nose as he passed, and he paused to give her a gentle pat, a soft greeting. The others had taken off before McCullough had climbed up, and once she was into the saddle, with Sean's arms wrapped around her, she allowed herself to give pause.

"It's good to see you, Sean." She tells him softly, and he perches his chin on her shoulder.

"I can't believe I'm saying this with you covered in fuckin' blood, but it's good to see you too." He responds, and she gives Nursey a gentle prompt to start moving.

"I should have left you tied up," she smirks, and Sean snorts at that.

"You would have liked that, wouldn't you?" He gives her a squeeze, and McCullough turns red at the implication. "But actually," Sean doesn't let the moment hang, however, his tone turning sincere, "thank you, Addie."

* * *

They celebrate at Sean's insistence, bottles being uncorked practically the moment he steps in to camp. It's been a long time since they've had a reason to celebrate, and they go just as hard as they would at any other endeavor. There's singing and dancing around the various camp fires, Arthur catches a glorious deer nearby which Pearson cooks to perfection, and finally, with Sean's boisterous tone added to the mix, the camp sounds like home. 

But McCullough is quiet.

As the sun's setting and the meat is still being cooked, she packs away her excess explosives, and takes longer than is strictly necessary to clean her gun. Arthur gives pause by her wagon, asking if she's okay. Her voice is strangely soft when she assures him she is, and he reaches out with a surprisingly gentle touch to wipe some of the dirt and blood from her face. It's a moment of quiet familiarity, and Arthur assures her that if she'd like to go wash up in the lake, there'd be time before dinner.

Arthur was observant and something like family, so it was not a huge surprise that he picked up on her strange mood, though she hadn't expected anyone else to. 

Down at the lake, she bathes without shame, scrubbing dirty and grime and blood from her skin, braiding her wet hair in the buff, sitting on a large stone by her clothes as she waited to dry. Changing into the clean skirt and blouse she'd brought with her, she makes the short journey back to camp, music filtering through the trees.

"Who are you and what have you done with McCullough?" Sean's grin is all teeth when he spots her from his place by the fire. 

"Terrible, unspeakable things," McCullough responds, though it's softer than her usual biting remarks. It's easy to sit beside him, to fit into the space by his side, though he seems confused by her out of character gentleness.

"Okay, now you've really got me worried," he's got an arm around her should, and she accepts a bottle of whiskey when Lenny passes it over, "the McCullough I know wouldn't be caught dead this close to anyone," the others laugh, and McCullough herself chuckles softly.

"Don't get used to it," she warns, some of the fight returning to her words. But then her head's on his shoulder, and Hosea joins them, starting up a new story of his own, and the moment passes. 

Sean's hand on her shoulder moves as the night progresses, but she's anyways with him. Dutch brings them dinner, making mention of how McCullough had been chomping at the bit every day since she'd found out he was alive, to go and rescue him, that she'd all but lost sleep over it with all the supplies she'd been making for the expedition. Sean turns fond at that.

"I knew you loved me, deep down," he gives her side a squeeze, and McCullough presses her embarrassed smile against his shoulder. 

"Me? Love you?" He hears her muffled voice as Dutch leaves them be, "never." She actually giggles, though the night is young. After dinner Sean, the guest of honour, takes his time going around camp talking to everyone; he dances with anyone who asks, he and Uncle cling together to sing an old shanty. Under the moon's gaze, in the cool night air, they drink and dance and delight, and with each swig of whiskey McCullough downs, she can feel herself growing more exuberant and fonder, forgetting how terrified she'd been only weeks ago when she hadn't know his fate. 

It's easy for her to step back; after weeks of being loud, of being brash and filling in the silences because she couldn't stand not hearing his voice, it was nice to keep quiet, to smile as she drank, watching him as his voice, his own laughter, filled the air. The world gets blurry around the edges, and she likes the unfamiliar swish of the skirt about her calves as she sways to the music. 

"Dance?" She holds out her hand to Arthur as he passes by, leaning a little as she struggles to keep her balance. He pauses, but smiles gently, taking her hand and stepping up to her.

"Of course, Miss Mad Dog," he agrees, his grip gentle on her waist as they sway back and forth. "How are you doing with all of this?" He asks, and McCullough hums thoughtfully.

"He's _back_," she murmurs, pure joy written all over her face as she looks over to where Sean was sitting by the fire.

"Why ain't you over there with him?" Arthur asks, following her gaze, and McCullough's expression drops.

"He's popular tonight," is all she offers, and Arthur frowns, stepping back. McCullough knows he's going to say something, doesn't quite know what, but knows it's going to be insufferably sincere and supportive. "If he wanted me to be there, I'd be there." She says resolutely.

"He is drunk as a skunk, Miss McCullough, he can't remember his own name. He's an idiot. Go be with him." Arthur sighs, and McCullough rocks back on her heels for a moment, before her gaze finally drifts to where Sean is singing along to whatever they're singing around the campfire. Arthur gives her a gentle nudge in his direction, and she stumbles a few steps forwards, before turning back, something soft and vulnerable in her expression. It's not something Arthur's used to seeing on her.

"I'd marry that idiot if given half a chance."

Arthur can't help but smile at that, watching as she makes a beeline for him, only stumbling a little, and sitting beside Sean. Once he sees her, however, his lips stretch into a grin, beaming as he pulls her into his lap. Javier passes McCullough a bottle of brandy, which she takes a long drink from, before passing it to Sean. 

Sober McCullough doesn't hesitate; she knows what she wants and refuses to doubt herself. Drunk McCullough is terrified that she wants _too _much, is too self-aware, doesn't want to impose, though she melts at the slightest touch. A few folks who haven't been with them long, Kieran, Charles, Micah, they seem surprised to see her like this.

"Aye, don't get it all twisted in your mind, O'Driscoll," Sean grins and slurs, his arm around McCullough as Kieran asks if she's alright. There's no malice behind the moniker, though Kieran, who is also drunk, though not as drunk as the pair of gingers, still frowns, "she's a wild filly, but she's calm as a gentle stream on Sunday if you know how to handle her-"

"You're a fuckin' menace, Mister MacGuire," McCullough steps back from him, arms crossed, "_I'm_ just taking a moment of respite since I no longer have to be the loudest Irish arshole in camp." Kieran actually laughs a little at that, and McCullough smiles a little, can't help herself.

"You just missed me," Sean steps up to her, his hands on her arms, uncrossing them for her, pulling her close. Kieran, rapidly losing interest in their conversation, starts to head towards where Tilly and Karen were talking and laughing by the fire. 

"Rumours of my worry for you were... greatly exaggerated." McCullough tries, but she can't lie convincingly as she wraps her arms around him, smiling softly.

"I think you love me." He grinned sharply.

"You're drunk."

"But am I wrong?"

"Do you love me?"

"You pointed that shotgun of yours at me the first time we went on a job together," he recalls with surprising clarity, and McCullough frowns, "and I thought Dutch had brought back some batty broad who'd kill us all, but you hollered for me to duck-"

"You dropped like a sack of bricks," McCullough cut in, confused as to where the anecdote was going. 

"I dropped like a sack of bricks," Sean laughed, nodding in agreement, "and you, _you_ blew off the head of the fella that had snuck up behind me with the knife. I knew there and then that you'd either be the death of me, or the love of my life." 

"I could be both," she smirks, stepping so they're flush, her chest pressed against his, almost nose to nose, and Sean smells like booze, but she's so drunk she doesn't notice; she smells like booze too. His grin is all teeth, amused by her confidence and recklessness in equal measure.

"You've been away too long." Her tone shifts, her eyes growing dark as her gaze drops to his lips, and she can tell from the way his mouth quirks that he's about to make some sort of sarcastic reply, but she doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want to hear a reminder of where he's been, what's happened, and so she kisses him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows he's a terrible fuck when he's drunk, but the moment she thinks about how long it's been since she's been with someone, she knows she needs him. He's got an arm around her waist, and one around her shoulders, pulling her close, his mouth fitting against hers, kissing her hard and almost desperate. 

When they break, breathless already, McCullough takes his hand without hesitation, leading him to her wagon, her bed set up in the back as it always was, a touch of familiarity that Sean is surprised to have move him, even a little. Sean climbs in as McCullough unfurls the canvas covering for the back, before joining him and pulling up the back of the tray, giving them a modicum of privacy. It's dark in here, and she hears a beat of Sean tapping on the floor with his hands as he struggles to find her before his hand connects with her knee. His hand slides up her thigh as she sits with her feet tucked under herself, and his other hand finds her face in the dark.

"Fookin' hell, Addie, I -" he can't quite find the words before he's kissing her again, moving her to press her back onto the padded bedroll. McCullough swallows hard, something in her chest at the nickname. 

"We're too dressed," McCullough tells him instead, voice rough, and at that prompt, she feels Sean untuck her blouse, his hand moving beneath it, warm and familiar against her bare skin, finding her breast.

He truly is an _awful _fuck while drunk, rather inattentive and quick to finish, and he won't shut up; half the camp would hear them if everyone wasn't absolutely plastered. He kneed himself in the face trying to get his pants off, but she wouldn't lie and say she didn't laugh at him a little in that moment.

"You're lucky I love you," McCullough tells him as she passes his pants back to him once they'd, or more accurately _he'd_, finished.

"_Knew it_," he smirked, dreamy and victorious, taking the pants, but making no move to put them back on. He can't see her in the dark, but he can hear her fussing with her clothes, and reaches out, smiling to himself as he feels the smooth, bare skin of her back. Her movements still. He gives the most gentle of pinches, more of an invite than anything else, and in the pitch dark, with no words, McCullough follows his suggestion and lays back down beside him. "I'll owe you." He says quietly, with the barest touch of amusement.

"MacGuire, that's a drop in the bucket of the amount of orgasms you owe me," McCullough fires back with, to which Sean laughs, conceding defeat on that point. He holds her a little closer, and she drapes her arm over him, chin resting on his chest. "You're the guest of honour." And she nods towards the end of the wagon, where the party was still raging outside, and she knows he knows what she means.

"I'm feeling pretty honoured right now," she can hear him smirking without needing to see it, and he gives her hip a squeeze. 

She wants to say _so much_, to tell him everything, how scared she'd been for _months_, how she never wants this moment to end. But she's never been good at words.

"I'm happy here too." 

And he hums along to the songs they're playing by the fire, a little out of time with how sleepy and lethargic he is, and she dances her fingers across his bare torso. They kiss, gentle in the darkness, and Sean's free hand finds it's way between her thighs. He's tired but diligent, and makes good on his promise, makes the words die in her throat and her back arch, and proves he still knows her as well as he once did. McCullough laughs quietly as she curls up against him, warm and content, and Sean hums with smug amusement, though she's too pleased to call him out. She pulls the wool blanket up to cover them both, realising how late it had gotten only when she saw the sky beginning to lighten through the slit between the canvas of the roof, and the wood of the tray. 

Sean, messy and warm, with his arm draped over her, presses a kiss to her temple before dozing off. McCullough, for her part, can't wipe the smile from her face, even as she drifts off herself.

* * *

McCullough gets quiet. She gets quiet and focused, not that she wasn't focused before, but now she was a woman of few words.

In the past few weeks, it had become commonplace to hear her arguing with Micah or Mrs Grimshaw, or talk with Molly or Karen, or singing and laughing with Uncle, or playing poker. There was a strangeness to the interactions; no-one was used to McCullough being so social, and there was a tiredness in her eyes when people would look too closely. 

Now, she's quiet, she smokes cigars while playing poker in favour of talking, she spends nights weaving fuses by the fire, listening to everyone else talking. There's something unsettling about her silence, her intensity. No-one really seems bothered, apart from Sadie and Kieran, who hadn't known her for that long, and had only known her as loud. She yells on occasion, usually either at Micah or Bill, but most often Sean. It's not often arguing with Sean, it's just how they communicate, hollering across camp at one another.

And she laughs now.

She's quiet, but she's happier, seems less tired, isn't feverish and seemingly, constantly covered in black powder the way she was in the weeks leading up to Sean's rescue. She's deliberate, unflinching, sort of unnerving. She works diligently by her workbench, but now it seems like she genuinely enjoys the work, rather than just using it as a means to an end. She still goes on jobs, though Dutch has gone back to giving her ones she can handle on her own; she's effective and vicious, and works best on her own. He'd been worried about her wellbeing back when she was acting brash, but now, he doesn't need to as much.

She's quiet enough that it takes almost three and a half months before anyone realises she's pregnant. She's been dealing with it quietly, kept to herself, blamed various illnesses, didn't want to come across as a liability. Sean knows, of course he does, and for the first time in his life, he keeps his mouth shut. He does, however, smile like he's got a secret, and there's a bounce in his step that makes McCullough smile when she notices.

It's Miss Grimshaw's fault that it gets out when it does; the baby had been growing steadily, and McCullough had started showing. She'd been wearing looser clothes, more skirts and blouses, trying to hide it as best she could, but her voracious appetite hadn't gone unnoticed.

"What is wrong with you, you lazy woman?" Miss Grimshaw snapped. She'd been halfway through lecturing McCullough about how her workbench and wagon were too close to the other women's sleeping quarters, and the smell of gunpowder and other various chemicals made her nauseous, when McCullough had bolted from camp to be ill behind a tree. "First you eat like a starved animal, only to throw it all back up, lord know how you're getting bigger if you never actually digest anything."

McCullough, eyes wide, looks at Miss Grimshaw with a newfound nervous energy, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, the other coming to grip at her stomach.

"I asked _' what is wrong with you_?'" Miss Grimshaw demanded an answer, "if you ain't gonna put in work like the rest of us, there had better be a damn good reason as to why you're eating twice as much-"

"I _am _workin'!" McCullough snapped, finally, "I'm puttin' twice as much into that donations box as any other woman in camp, I'm fightin' off those Lemoyne Raiders just as fiercely as Arthur, Sadie, or any of the other outlaws we call family, _Susan_, even though I am _pregnant _and -" the moment the words left her lips, she knew she'd made a mistake. It was like watching a tomato ripen; Miss Grimshaw's face turned from sickly and pale, to bright red, almost bursting at the seams.

"Do not - _do not _\- tell me that Mister MacGuire-"

"Well it's not like I'm sleeping with anyone else -!"

"You," Miss Grimshaw seethed, voice going dangerously quiet, "are a lazy wench, with terrible taste and a talent _only_ for destruction, and you want to bring _another _mouth to feed into our community? You will not even grant me the _privilege _of knowing your _first name_," she snarled, and McCullough raised her eyebrow at the matron of the gang, "and yet you allowed that layabout to -"

"Allowed him? Miss Grimshaw, _Susan_, I was _happily _party to it. I _love _Sean, and you're going to shut your mouth about him before you find yourself in an early grave." There was that quiet fury that McCullough saved only for her victims, and to her surprise, Miss Grimshaw's mouth snapped closed. "I _am _pulling my weight, just because I'm not darning your bloomers and kissing your arse, don't mean I ain't. Now I'd advise you to _fuck off -_" Miss Grimshaw actually gasped at that, at the calm anger written all over her face, "because the way I see it, the way I live my life is _none _of your business."

It's all over the camp by nightfall, which had Sean all but beaming.

"Miss Grimshaw actually congratulated me," he sounds bemused, "didn't think her cold, stone heart could deal with being happy for another person," which makes McCullough chuckle.

"I mean, I don't know how happy she is, I told her to fuck off earlier, she was none too pleased about it," she snickers, and Sean laughs, loud and bright, at that. He curls his arm around her just as Uncle joins them, loudly slurring a congratulations of his own. Overall, folks around camp were excited, apart from Micah, who's doing a great job of being a heartless asshole.

"Who the fuck would trust you with a baby?" He snaps, one afternoon not long after. McCullough is packing her shotgun shells, and looks up, unimpressed. "Listen, _Mad Dog_," he spits the title, and she actually snarls a little in response, "I've been to Strawberry. I've seen your wanted poster, Missy; patricide wasn't enough for you? You gotta-"

"I _didn't_ do what they thought I did-"

"But you've killed plenty of folks since haven't you? So it's not out of the realm of possibility, as it may be, _M__iss Mad Dog_." A long silence stretches between them, and Micah's leaning on her workbench, refusing to break eye contact. McCullough's expression turns cold, and she, without looking away, reaches to the side of where she was filling cartridges, to pick to two that had been finished. 

"I have killed more men than you have ever faced, Mister Bell," she says calmly, "but I don't kill my own." She loads her gun without looking away, and Micah's jaw tightens, unwilling to break eye contact to watch what she was doing. "And you, well you haven't been here long? And when you talk like that, you certainly don't sound like my own." She pauses for a beat, pressing the barrel of her sawed-off shotgun to his chin. "Because _my own_ don't threaten to accuse me of a crime I _still _didn't commit." It's the most she's ever said to him, and she cocks the gun as a warning. She will not be the one to look away, that much she knows, and neither of them are sure if she's bluffing.

Micah leaves her, and even Sean, well enough alone after that. But she still tells Sean.

"Listen, love, if you say you didn't do it, then you didn't; you've never been one to _not _own up to a killing. What daft reason would you have to deny something like this?" And he laughs, and for the first time since she'd been chased out of Strawberry that first time, all those years ago, she actually feels like she's found a home in him.

* * *

Fionn MacGuire is born screaming in the middle of Spring at Shady Belle.

"He's got a set of lungs on him, don't he? Just like his da!" Sean seems delighted, even with the infant wailing in his arms. He rocks the baby back and forth, humming something half-remembered as McCullough is cleaned up by the other ladies of the house. Arthur seems in awe of Fionn, and Dutch won't stop smiling. "You know you're not actually the kid's grandda, right?" Sean half laughs, seeing Dutch's smile, despite how trying their situation had been as of late. 

"Don't ruin this for him," Arthur half laughs as Dutch huffs about for a moment. Fionn's crying is dying down to a babble, his little eyes are still closed, and he's so pink, apart from the shock of ginger hair atop his head. 

"You can be an uncle, alright?" Sean compromises, and Dutch can't help but smile at that.

"You should make an honest woman out of her," Arthur says gently, his focus still on the baby, who was chattering away. 

"Like, marry her? Marry Adelaide?" Of course Sean's thought about it, spent nine whole months worrying that she'd want to marry before the baby, rush it, in amongst the chaos that was their lives. Miss Grimshaw had let her opinion on the matter be known every chance she could, though McCullough wouldn't let her get far before telling the woman where she could shove her opinions.

Okay, so maybe Sean's considered it more than a little, the thought of maybe getting a farmhouse, somewhere discrete, because it'd take divine intervention for either of them to give up their highwaymen lifestyle. Somewhere open and bright, where Fionn could run and play with Nursey, and Ennis, and maybe a few other animals. He'd always liked chickens. The gang would be welcome, as long as they don't bring trouble with them. They'd be happy.

_Marry Adelaide_, yeah, that sounded like a damn good idea.


End file.
